Tuesday, February 14, 2012

TV And Me

I STILL don't like this new-look Blogger. I haven't figured out how to sort out the comments section- I can't even READ your comments after the first 200, but I'll have to do something soon... grrrr...

Anyway...

I got a call just before 6 PM yesterday- my publicist, wanting to know if I could POSSIBLY make it onto a plane the next day to go to London to appear on the Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV. Me, being the true professional that I am, eventually stopped crying and said absolutely, no problem. Never mind the fact that I'm writing a book. Never mind the fact that my deadline is approaching. Never mind all those little details. I'd be delighted to get up early and get on a plane and go to London and sit around for a few hours and appear on air for FIVE MINUTES... and then get on another plane and fly home, waving goodbye to a full day of work... Sigh. Such is the life of a super-genius.

As it turned out, though, I had a lot of fun. Yes, the traveling and the waiting was as boring as ever, and yes I did have to miss a day of writing, but I was on the show with John Barrowman, from Dr Who and Torchwood- awesome! He's a lovely guy, and his sister was equally lovely, and I had a really funny five minutes on stage with them, being interviewed. They've written a book for young people called Hollow Earth, and it actually sounds pretty cool. John is everything you'd expect- charming, funny, friendly and engaging- so I wasn't at all disappointed. He was just like Captain Jack Harkness, in fact. Which obviously poses a problem, since if I ever get to meet David Tennant or Matt Smith I'll be expecting them to be wonderfully intelligent people with the ability to time travel. Hmmm.

Matt Cardle was also there, but he's not much of a "book-person". Nice chap, though.

But now I'm home, and I might actually try and get some work done. The book is going well, I'm sure you'll be happy to know. 60,000 words and counting. Whether or not it'll continue the tradition of every book being longer than the one before, I don't know. Hopefully it will, because I like giving readers more pages for their money every time, but a book's length is a book's length, and the story itself will dictate how long it'll be.

I also have a possible title... that I can't tell you about just yet! My agent loves it, my editor loves it, I'm pretty sure the marketing people love it... It's completely different to the style of titles I've been using up until now, which is what I'm after. I'm sure I'll be able to tell you what it is soon enough, and then we'll show you the cover closer to September, just to torture you even more.

But for now, I'm concentrating on writing the thing, fully conscious that The End Of The World is out on March 1st. You guys have caused such a storm with this, actually, because thousands of you have pre-ordered it on Amazon UK, and apparently that has never happened for a World Book Day book before. I've heard that Amazon were a tad stunned...

Last thing - sorry! - you can read the comments after 200 if you save the url you're directed to after you make a comment, but you do have to comment at least once I think.*stops hogging the comment section creepily*

Oh My Golden God, Everyone on the Skulduggery Pleasant Facebook Page was talking about it - http://www.facebook.com/Skuttlebugfans - It was so cool! Tell us the title I soooo want to know! You know you want to tell us so you can make sure it's right!

omg i in top 200!!!! Hi Derek oh and i think i know how to fix the problem with not reading our comments click on the title of the name of the blog you posted and it takes you to a page with the blog and then you can scoll down to read comments hope i helped you

HIII DEREK!!!! You torture us more than Serpine did to Skulduggery. You Torture us, badly. I feel like a dog begging at the Kitchen table...you REALLY have to come to Co. Armagh, or I will tell my dog Belle to lick you to death. She may sound like a teeny dog ting, BUT she is the size of a Horse. A Rhodesian Ridgeback lion-herding dog is usually the size of a horse. Anyway, love Skulduggery :)

OH MY FREAKING GODDDDD!!!!!! YOU MET JOHN BARROWMAN!!!!!!!!!!! EEEEEEHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT'S-THAT'S- OH MY GOD THE AWESOMENESS MUST HAVE BEEN PRACTICALLY FLYING OUT OF EVERYTHING FOR THOSE 5 MINUTES!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

in my school i got a lot of my friends reading SP all it took was me reading dark days for the very first time and everyone got really interested i dont want to even mention nikki's moment yesterday for her own safety of spoons and other weapons we may have for this was truly a scary moment

DEREK! About the comment thing. From where you post the comments, this little pop-up window, you can't get to the new ones. But in the actual comment stream - the one that shows up under your post so you can read them without commenting yourself - you CAN get to the new pages. There's still those little buttons for that. Hope this helps!

Anyway.

OHMYGOD YOU MET THE BARROWMAN! That's so awesome :'D He's awesome. You're awesome. You and him together equals awesome. Awesoomeee

Also. Going to go buy Hollow Earth now.

I'm very excited for the next book, and also The End Of The World, which I still need to order. We're all waiting eagerly for more of your genius.

Hahaha! We stunned Amazon <3 So proud :3 I CANNOT wait for The End Of The World to come out, I need some more inspiration for my next story and you have been one of my only 3 inspirations to write, and the reason I got an A* (19/20) on my last English exam, we had to write a story. Anyway, WHY MUST YOU TORTURE US? YOU HAVE GOT ME TORTURING MY FRIENDS BECAUSE YOU TORTURE US!!!!! Well....Much love and I guess I will go back to either writing or reading Skulduggery Pleasant from the beginning, yet again. :') <3 xxx

I've read all of them more times than I care to remember but I nearly died at the Lord Vile thing (no spoilers for people who haven't read it yet) I got Darquesse straight away I read the name and was like 'well that's Val' but LORD VILE whaa?